


One thing long lost makes room for better chances

by Flauschvieh



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Athos' POV during the finale of Commodities, Athos' flashbacks from the past, Gen, Heavy Drinking, Hurt and comfort, a lot of angst and stress, caring d'Artagnan, pairings implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-12 19:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1197426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flauschvieh/pseuds/Flauschvieh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Athos stays back in the manor in which he has spent the happier days of his past, unable to cope with his feelings and with himself. If it isn't for d'Artagnan to show up and drag his ass out, he'd be burning alive by the ghost of his past. So while losing any remains from the past, he gets a new aspect on life...</p>
            </blockquote>





	One thing long lost makes room for better chances

**Author's Note:**

> Set right at the end at 1x03 Commodities. Heavy spoilers if you haven't watched it yet
> 
> Athos/Anne Theme Song: Avril Lavigne feat Chad. Kroeger - Let me go

Athos knocked down one glass of wine after another out of the wooden box he had found in the stocks - until the estate’s liquor deposite was shrunken down to only one bottle which Athos brought along with him to the next room. He felt his head spinning, certainly already drunk enough to wake with this brutal headache he was by now so accustomed to the next morning... if there would be any.

He couldn't stop with the drinking, the thoughts rushing through his head like they tried to outplay their master. That was why Athos loved battle, facing an opponent with his blade or the muskeet. The bloodrush and the heat and the adrenalin.

Thoughts couldn't reach him there - it would end deadly for him to pause in a duell, being carried off by to much thinking... which made the evenings and nights worst. The alcohol was his constant companion and keeping his thoughts at bay.

Coming back here was the worst Athos could have done to himself. But he did it for Porthos.

Funny thing was, the other had already left… like half an hour or so ago, to accompany Bonnair to Paris and present him to the king. But Athos was still here, he couldn’t leave the estate. He had just returned from the village, had locked himself into the house. Remi dead - why couldn’t it be him? More blood on his hands that he couldn't wash off.

The spacious place was dark and barely lit by the full moon in front of the window, trying its way through the heavy courtains. Where it succeeded, it lit the dusty funishings and then lit the man’s face, as Athos slumbed down to the ground with a muffled thud, back heavy against a board in his back, head hung low to his chest.

The walls were closing down on him, he could feel it, full of memories he had tried to run away from, five years ago. The man groaned.  
Why did he have to return to this place, why did they come here - of all places around Paris.

He wasn't the _Comte de la Fère_ anymore. He had left title and former life behind as he'd left the place - with the hope to start anew as a Musketeer in the king's guard.

Fairly obvious now, he couldn't get away from the past. It was his lot to bear.

  
Athos gulped down another mouth full of wine, giving a silent gasp as his stomach growled in protest and he had to fight the impulse to throw up.

If d’Artagnan had realized it wasn’t actually vandals, that had happened to the portraits in the hallway, but Athos himself? Sure he had, the boy was clever.

_Anne._  
 _Thomas…_

Athos groaned in agony, the memories kept hunting him.. Anne’s face and the forget-me-nots in her hands, Remi’s torn expression so full of doubt as he followed his orders to hang her on the tree - Athos pushed himself up and over to the large and abandoned bed, sinking back down there to the ground in front of the sheets.. and falling right into it, head burried into the curve of his arm.

He couldn’t care less when the liquour purred itself all over the dusty sheets, soaking them and his sleeve wet.

  
He wanted to close everything out… shut his mind down. Heavy panting against the duvet, which still had that distinctive smell to it - Athos couldn’t stand it.

He had to get out.. somehow.  
Anger welled up in him, frustration for not being able to change the past and to be damned with his decisions.

Right then, when he was sure he would manage to keep himself on his feet, he stumbled towards the hallway, mad at himself and helplessness in his actions,  he smashed the bottle against the framed picture of his former reflection, watching the red fluid leaking over the portrait. So much, it reminded him of the exact colour of blood.

Out. Get out.

  
This was when Athos caught the distinctive scent of smoke and fire. Coming from the bedroom, the one he had just left. Athos’ eyes widened, as he turned around dead slow, to face the familiar figure covered in red velvet - with the torch in hand.  
Athos’ face lost any remaining trace of colour. It could not be. Not her. Not here.

“You’re dead. I watched you hang..”

Athos struggled to comprehend.  This woman standing in front of him wasn’t his beloved Anne anymore. In fact she was dead to him... still had died five years ago. And now _this_ woman had killed Remi. An illusion? - She made him doubt that, as the torch hit him hard over the head and the burning pain made him crash down to the floor with a groan.

  
A dream? Neither. The stinging blade pressed to his throat a moment later was to damn real for that, the black hair and the green eyes, so familiar it put Athos into shock. He gasped, having a hard time to comprehend what was happening in his alcohol clouded mind.

She showed him the marks from the noose on her filigran neck, it numbed Athos’ mind to full extend, as he learned it had been all a frame - which Milady had broken now, with killing Remi.

  
It didn’t matter that he had come back, that she was still alive after all this time. She was a criminal, she had killed his brother Thomas… planting herself into his life five years ago. But it didn’t matter now...

  
“Do it”, Athos breathed, gazing up at the woman he thought he’d put to rest with his decision five years ago. He wasn’t surprised nor frightend as the blade pressed against his skin on an impuls.

Maybe this is it, its an end. He can end now..

  
Athos felt his mind drifting off, the alcohol and the smoke taking its toll to his consciousness… But life - or rather Milady wasn't so kind on him.

It was the small golden necklace that saved his life. The little pendant with the forget-me-not neatly framed inside the token made the blade drop, turning Milady into Anne for a moment, as Athos’ reached and pressed into her dark hair one last time, before collapsing to the ground.

They cannot forgive each other, but maybe he can rest now..

  
Athos was not killed by the small blade, but the fire set in the house would see to that eventually... both of them knew it. Milady left him with this thought, left her husband and their past behind in flames as a sudden loud voice echoed through the place, coming from outside the walls and calling Athos’ name.

Coughing, still heaved up on one elbow Athos looked around the room, eyes squinting against the smoke. The fire hit his lungs and made it painfull to breath. A part of him was still fighting the surrender. 

It wasn’t okay for him to go like this, was it? Porthos, Aramis.. and d’Arthangan. They waited for him in Paris and he still was a Musketeer on his king’s duty.

Giving in wasn't an option he would take so easily. But Athos was not strong enough to get up again on his own, he realized, gritting his teeth and breahting in the smoke to fight the urge to choke on it.

_“ATHOS!”_

It was d’Artagnans voice echoing through the hallway. He had come back to the manor to check on the other, not leaving a friend behind.

Though, the whole house was burning now, it gave d’Artagnan a hard time to not stumble into a pile a burning stuff- or even see where he was putting his feet.

He didn’t know where exactly to look for Athos for the mansion being enourmously roomily, but the other had to be around the chambers still, because he hadn’t seen him get out when the flames started to leak through the broken windows.

  
“Athos!” D'Artagnan yelled, getting  a choked moan in response and he kneeled by the older man, pulling him up with great effort.

“Athos! It’s me D’Artagnan. Come on, get up!” Good thing Athos wasn’t a giant as Porthos and d’Artagnan managed to drag the friend outside the burning estate.

  
They slumped down in front of the burning walls, into the moist gras and d’Artagnan let Athos sink to his knees, panting and coughing the smoke out of his lungs.

  
He looked so much worse than he had ever seen him before, pale and with traces of dirt and liquor and soot all over his face. d’Artagnan ran over to the horses, to gather his water bottle and then  he poured it over his friend’s hair and face carefully, rubbing the dirt off to see, if he was injured. He was relieved when shock seemed to be only thing, Athos was suffering from. .   

“Athos! The woman, who was that?”

He had seen her leave, on that horse, all cloaked in red velvet and that picture all so disturbingly familiar.

d’Artagnan couldn’t helpt it - he was frantic. Much to Athos’ surprise. He was not only worried, but downright shocked by the state Athos was in.

D'Artagnan had grown to like all three of them, Porthos and Aramis too, but in a way, D’Artagnan felt closest to the unspoken leader of their group.

Athos was like a big brother to him, a surrogate father which he trusted and had accepted as a mentor... and in some way he felt in Athos’ debt, after what had when they first met and he’d accused him of murdering his father.

After this incident and after he’d spent some time with the trio, d’Artagnan got to know all of them better - even Athos, who always had stayed a mistery, restraining himself to solitude and a drink alone ever so often, after they had finished a day’s work.

But before long, young d'Artagnan had learned that Athos actually was a fair and rightous man with great care for his friend's wellbeing - and had now nearly died because of that. And in a way, d’Artagnan liked him best. Maybe now they could be called even, though d’Artagnan felt it wasn’t about righting a wrong and repaying one’s dept.

Athos was his friend now and seeing him like this… he unmistakeably cared.  
 

D'Artagnan watched Athos out of the corner of his eye and saw that the man was stripped of his composure, was so bare and vulnerable, like he had seen him before. Whatever Athos had experience inside there had really thrown him.

“The woman I loved.. she died by my orders”, Athos said after a moment, still breathing raw and muttering to himself. This wasn't helping, nor was it explaining Athos' almost murder.  D’Artagnan felt himself getting angry and found his fingers clawing into the smoldering leather of Athos' collar, yanking him fowrward and forcing him look at him.

“Look at me! You’re saying the ghost of your wife is haunting you?!”

  
Athos just gave him a blank stare and gasped. He really was out of his mind, so far away from being the leader D’Artgagnan had come to respect...

  
All that babbling about ghosts and haunting memories and fullfilling his duty made d'Artagnan  wish to punch some sense into Athos. But as the other fell back into the grass, staring up to the burning manor, the remains of his past, D’Artagnan did not.

Instead he kept his hold on Athos tightly, leaning forward so their foreheads came to rest against one another and d'Artagnan felt the ragged breathing against his skin. "Shhh it's okay I'm here", d'Artagnan murmured soothingly and really Athos seemed to settle down gradually...

D'Artagnan watched Athos' eyes, the dark brown irises following every frantic flicker of the grey-blue ones and eventually Athos put his arms around the younger man, letting himself drop backwards into the grass and dragging the other with him. Athos was pressing into him closely, holding on to the other for dear life...

So they just stayed for a long moment to count...

 

fin ~


End file.
